Weekend
Hello! I should finish my Honduras trip recounting here, but I don't really feel like it. You can see pictures on Jen's Facebook if you really WANT to. We went to a Children's Home on Tuesday, Christmas Day. It was much nicer than I expected--much more in terms of resources, I mean--and the kids were not desperately needy. They seemed generally cared for with plenty of attention. So we played and colored with them, I was commandeered as the personal playmate of a girl named--as close as I could tell--Biki, and I followed her around and did what she told me. "Push me" (on the swings) is pretty much understandable in any language.
Oh, look. I just recounted! Done!
I spent a good chunk of this weekend watching nuclear annihilation films on YouTube. These are movies produced in Britain in the mid-eighties, and they are not good. No triumph of the human spirit or hope for the future. Just horrible, horrible death and destruction. Had I seen these movies as a child, I would've been traumatized for life. I shudder to think how they would've screwed me up. But now they're just really disturbing.
I cry fairly easily, about many things. TV commercials, thinking about parent-child relationships, listening to sad songs, seeing a mother and her handicapped son at Kmart. But when I watch something horrifying, I can't cry. I don't feel like crying, I just feel this sense of growing dismay in my chest, like a lump getting bigger and bigger as the problems worsen. That's what these movies did to me.
So, why did I watch them? They were fascinating, for one. And interesting, and a piece of history (albeit very recent). If you are interested in what will happen in or after a nuclear war, you should watch. When the Wind Blows is an animated movie, but I would never, ever show it to a child. It's just two old people trying to prepare for a nuclear bomb and then what happens to them afterward. Very bad things. And Threads is live-action, very cheaply filmed, but still completely disturbing.
Mike and I had our End-of-the-World party in 2006, and we watched Armageddon and Deep Impact and drank some beer. If we'd had an End-of-the-World party with WtWB and Threads, a) we'd have needed something stronger than beer, and b) we would have just kept drinking.
Oh, look. I just recounted! Done!
I spent a good chunk of this weekend watching nuclear annihilation films on YouTube. These are movies produced in Britain in the mid-eighties, and they are not good. No triumph of the human spirit or hope for the future. Just horrible, horrible death and destruction. Had I seen these movies as a child, I would've been traumatized for life. I shudder to think how they would've screwed me up. But now they're just really disturbing.
I cry fairly easily, about many things. TV commercials, thinking about parent-child relationships, listening to sad songs, seeing a mother and her handicapped son at Kmart. But when I watch something horrifying, I can't cry. I don't feel like crying, I just feel this sense of growing dismay in my chest, like a lump getting bigger and bigger as the problems worsen. That's what these movies did to me.
So, why did I watch them? They were fascinating, for one. And interesting, and a piece of history (albeit very recent). If you are interested in what will happen in or after a nuclear war, you should watch. When the Wind Blows is an animated movie, but I would never, ever show it to a child. It's just two old people trying to prepare for a nuclear bomb and then what happens to them afterward. Very bad things. And Threads is live-action, very cheaply filmed, but still completely disturbing.
Mike and I had our End-of-the-World party in 2006, and we watched Armageddon and Deep Impact and drank some beer. If we'd had an End-of-the-World party with WtWB and Threads, a) we'd have needed something stronger than beer, and b) we would have just kept drinking.
Labels: Big Questions, Childhood trauma, TV
posted by Melanie at 12:31 AM
